Blog Assignment: My Family Culture

The blog assignment for week one, the in Perspectives on Diversity and Equity class for my ECS class is focused on a major catastrophe devastating the infrastructure of our country.   The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries that are willing to take refugees.  However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

The three items I would choose to represent my family culture and a brief description of why they are important to me are:

1.) Photographs of my family, my nana, great grandpa and my dad.  All family members I currently am without, and if the rest of my family is coming with me I will have them close by.  The pictures of my dad, nana and great grandpa will keep me reminded that they are watching me and will guide me to do the correct thing.

2.) A Bible.  I have yet to really read the bible, other than what they offer at sunday school in church, and I feel if I were to take any books with me I would take that to keep my faith and hope alive.

3.) A form of photo identification with my Social Security card (or perhaps I should finally invest in a passport.)  This way I can prove that I was a member of the country being evacuated and my identification in that country, even if they were going to assign me another one.

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and have to give up the other two items you brought with you:

I would be devastated but would hope I could understand that I had my health, and my life.  I was allowed to come to this country much different than my own.  I would be scared, and would not know which item I should be allowed to keep.  I would assume they would give me a form of identification for their country so I would give that up, I would also give up my photographs.  I have my memories which they can never take away from me.  The Bible I would keep, because it shows my faith, and inside are stories I could read to understand different hardships other had to go through.

Any insights I gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity and/or cultural differences in general:

I realize that I would not be prepared if I were to be moved from this country suddenly.  I keep continuously putting off different things in my life, such as getting a passport.  I feel the passport, while right now it will allow me to travel, it would probably be beneficial to me if any tragedy or circumstance every arose that I would need to use it.  I also have a stong sense of relgion, I am a church goer and will go most Sunday and every Christmas and Easter, but I never once read the Bible on my own.  Something I think I should do.

I also realized that I have no idea what it would feel like, or be like to be removed from my current country.  I say I could conform to their situations and their customs, but I have never been in the situation where I would be challenged to do this.  It is easy to assume what it would be like, but reading stories and accounts I realize it is never how I might imagine.